What do you think a modern director would choose to produce a film in blakc and white, rather than colour? What Affects might they be hoping to achieve?





First of all it obviouskly makes the whole film stand out, despite the film being in black and white and the natural responce being that the colour loss of the film makes it dull it almost helps to tell the story.



Also the lower class element of the film is supported by this black and white feature. Although this is probably not a direct feature of the directors reasoning behind the colouration at was probably though of. The fact that all the characters in the film have been brought off as middle and lower class. I therefore think that the colouration is to help deplict these people as being very poor and plain



further more I think the director has used the black and white colouring to demonstraight that a movie doesn't need to rely on colour to bring in the audience, especially seeing as the Movie itself doesn't really have too many moments where colour could play a big impact. Their isn't a scene where, in my opinion a radient GREEN sun or a medow of GREEN grass would have been needed.

Finally I think the fact that MOST of the Movie being in black and white makes the final scene where the boys are in Paris with their dream girl (Whoose name is never used in the film) more special as it kind of shows the boys coming out of the dull struggles and problems they face in their lives to be with the girl of the dreams in Paris (A scene of the Movie shown in colour probably for this reason)

From the list of modern films shot in black and white you were given. Choose three and find out their release date, their genre, the director’s reputation and the critical reaction to the film.

Come back to

The film is named after Somers Town, the part of London in which it is set. Most of the filming also took place on location in that area.
Given the London location, what iconographic sights and sounds might you expect from the film?

I think all of the sounds we hear associated with London in this film are very much digetic (The Hustle and Bustle of the streets, the noisy traffic in the city).

We see some very 'London typical sights' aswell. For example we see the London Bridge, something instantly associated with Long (Hence the name LONDON BRIDGE) but also I think we see other sights such as the large blocks of flats and the B and B cafe. These places are not places that just exist in London however it is very easy to relate them to London by their structures and instandtly regonisable characteristics (e.g Tomo's Bacon sandwitch. A meal that I would immediatly think of as a big old Londoners mid morning snack!).

Something else I found was the dodgy market salesman who gives Marek the Arsenal shirt comically with Terry Henry on the back instead of Therry Henry. This in itself might just have been used to generate humour, although I think it shows the wealer dealer London image that reminds me of such London classics as Oliver Twist and Only Fools and Horses.

What are your expectations about character and narrative based on this setting?
I would expect the characters the honor this as very steriotypical citizens of the city. For example I would think due to the fact that they are likely to be very lower class I would think that they would have poor manners and act a bit like grifters (Once again relating to Oliver Twist)

Somers Town day out

We embarked on Norwich armer with a notpad and pen ready to take notes on the British film industry and of Course watch a film called Somers town, a film based a friendship shared between two boys both from backrounds many people put in the category of 'Dreggs of society'. The film is directed by Shane Medows. Someone who is notorious for stepping up to the hotseat when confronted with films based on Social realism (Basically doesn't smooth off the edges and tells it how it is).

Before the film we had a women talk to us about British films and the similarities between each one. For example the women definied a British film as a typically low budget film that tended to focus on the midle class

The industry we have today kicked off in the 50's after the war where directors realised the importance of using real life working class people in their movies.

Well thats it from me for now

Laters

Once Upon a Time in The West

As part of our ongoing research into the 'Art' of the thriller industry we watched the first few minutes of a Spagetti Western film called 'Once Upon A Time In The West'. Although the obvious outdatedness (Is that a word) of the film provided cheap laughs from the class it was actually in my opinion a good example of a thriller film. The opening 2 minutes of film were all we saw, but that was enough time to pick up some Tentionous (Another one I will have to check with those nice people at Oxford). For example sounds like the creaky door built up a hostile mood that lingered in the backround of a scene which saw an old ticket officer standing off againest a Big Black Cowboy (Words that when put together can only mean trouble!) And also the 'Diagetic' sounds. The NARURAL whistling of the wind showed the decoletness of the area and how the man probably had no help for miles.
While I managed to squeeze Diagetic into my description I'm afraid my notes prohibited me from doing the same for Non Digetic, the definition of which I would like to list below.
Non Diagetic: A sound that does not occur as part of the action, and cannot be heard by the film's characters for example the theme tune to a movie often overlaps the titles and spills onto the start of a Movie. This is a Non Diagetic sound as only the audience can hear it.

Well anyway thats it for now Cheers for reading

Joe

Final Cut Part 2

Today was a much more hands on lesson, exploring areas of editing software I had never seen before. Learning about how to add and label clips of film by connecting the camera to the mac and adding the clips we collected around the school onto the computer. We used the escape key to cut at different points to create shorter, more organised clips which we then labelled with what they showed to ensure that the editing process is a little less stress free, only a little

Cheers for now

Joe

Thriller Planning, Audience Research, Thriller Research, Thriller Evaluation, Thriller Construction, Course Work

Media Homework- Thriller Films

Thriller Definition
Thrillers are characterized by fast pacing, frequent action, and resourceful heroes who must crush the plans of more-powerful and better-equipped villains

5 Thriller Films
The Godfather
The Great Escape
Jaws
Hotel Rwanda
Terminator 2- Judgement Day: This is the film out of the five that I have seen. It is a good example of the definition I have provided above. It is fast paced with lots of gun action throughout. And a, in theory less powerful hero who uses his resources well against a more powerful superhero who is made of liquid metal a substance described by the hero in the movie as ‘Indestructible’. The plans of the villain are to destroy the main character, John Connor, a character who is set to lead the human race to a close fought victory against their Scynet computer counterparts. The is basically about the liquid metal villain robots failed attempts to destroy John Connor. The film finishes with a last gasp battle between the good and bad robots which following the outdated corny Thriller theme results in the Indestructible robot being melted in a big pot of molten liquid. Who would have guessed?!!!!

On a serious note. It was a pretty interesting lesson.

The programme was similar to a programme called Adobe Premier Pro which proved to be an advantage as Final cut is just a better laid out, slightly more user friendly programme that we are using to edit a promotional video of the school! Should be interesting!

This is my Blog about final cut!!!!

Well basically last Friday we learnt about how to use a editing programme called Final Cut. A tedious process that saw us occupy Apple Mac computers for the best part of two hours, a period that saw us only scratch the surface of learning to use the programme as we seemed to watch a spining globe in various motions includeing fast, slow, rewind, slow rewind, normal, up, down, side to side!

Still looking forward to tomorrow's lesson where he comes in again though!!!!!!!